Proposal: Remove ammo wagons

[Garnier]

In response to Harmon's post in the artillery discussion, I think this discussion can be separate from the other.

With artillery I have problems with front line resupply and the instantaneous resupply. This is very gamey and no one but me complains, but for me it is big. Artillery should not resupply except they are limbered up and then they should take excessive casualties if they are targeted while limbered. This would make players pull their artillery back for resupply. I believe this to be essential and doable for historical accuracy. Players would have to be more mindful of artillery supply and infantry commanders would have another historical tactic. Didn't Alexander send a note to Pickett to "Come quick or I will not be able to properly support you". Of course if he had front line resupply with "supper wagons" he could have all the supply he wanted.

I agree, and still hope to find a way to accomplish something along these lines. One probably controversial idea I had was to remove supply wagons entirely, but increase the amount of guns to more historical numbers. This way you'd have guns that you wouldn't always be able to find good ground for, which adds some realistic feel. Also, you'd want to keep your guns silent when they don't have good targets they can damage, because once the gun uses its 120 shots, it can't fire anymore. This would represent artillery fatigue, damaged guns, etc. The cannon could be used only so much each battle, rather than just having them fire non stop from beginning to end with no concern for ammunition or fatigue.

What do you all think of trying no ammo wagons? It would also mean you can't resupply infantry, but that is rarely necessary with 60 rounds anyway, and is in my opinion not too significant.

I like the idea of actually replacing guns during battle. You'd actually have something to do with your guns instead of just place them and let them fire away forever. We'd also see all of the ammunition types used, currently we resupply them so much they hardly ever fire anything but shrapnel and canister.

[Geneal William D. Pender]

i disagree that resupply is for inf wouldn't be a problem the last have ever many battles i always have to resupply my inf, as far as another idea is to lower how much a ammo wagon can can carry into battle, that way people would have to conserve arty ammo.

[Garnier]

another idea is to lower how much a ammo wagon can can carry into battle, that way people would have to conserve arty ammo.

That doesn't work because artillery use almost no ammo from the wagon, so having low ammo in the wagon you can still resupply guns, but won't be able to resupply infantry.

Personally I kind of like the idea of having limited infantry ammunition as well. We could raise infantry ammunition if necessary. Currently if you run out, you can just resupply instantly with no drawbacks.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Hi.

I'm definitely not a historian by any means, so what I'm about to propose could be off the wall.

Instead of having to pull your troops back to respply, why not issue the order to the commander, and he sends out a courier to the supply line, and the supply line immediately sends out a supply via a supply cart so the troops don't have to move. I mean you can have the troops resupply themselves the way it is now, but wouldn't it just be better to have the cannon stay in place, and have the ammo brought up?

Just a thought....

[SouthernSteel]

I think the constant supply of reinforcements is honestly a bigger problem than an easily accessible supply of ammunition. Penalizing a player for being in combat constantly, even if it isn't their fault (necessarily) seems a bit silly. Yes, unlimited ammo is not historically accurate, but we had problems before with only, say, one or two infantry regs using up the entire wagon, because they always go for max on resupply.

If you want to make people more conscious of taking care of their troops, cut down the flow of reinforcements, not the flow of ammo during a battle.

[Turbotay]

Is there a way to change the time it takes for the supply wagon to issue out the ammunition? As it stands now, the wagons only have to do a drive by on the artillery batteries and everyone magically refills their caissons. I think a happy medium would be for the wagon to have to sit at the battery for a minute or two before the ammo is replenished. Same goes for infantry. Right now, it's like the supply wagon is being driven by Santa Claus, distributing beans and bullets to all the good billys and johnnys.

[Garnier]

Is there a way to change the time it takes for the supply wagon to issue out the ammunition? As it stands now, the wagons only have to do a drive by on the artillery batteries and everyone magically refills their caissons. I think a happy medium would be for the wagon to have to sit at the battery for a minute or two before the ammo is replenished. Same goes for infantry. Right now, it's like the supply wagon is being driven by Santa Claus, distributing beans and bullets to all the good billys and johnnys.

In the supply aspect we have very little to work with. We can't make the wagons slower, we can't make them give out ammo slower, we can't have wagons get shot and explode, we can't make wagons unable to move in rough terrain, we can't make certain wagons only work for infantry or artillery, and we can't change how much ammo is used for resupplying different units.

Part of the problem is that the ammo in the wagon can be counted as either a musket shot or a cannon shot. So if we just limited the total ammo in the wagons, you'd save the last say, 1000 rounds which could either give 10 bullets to 100 men, or 100 cannon shots to 10 guns, and use that for artillery. So practically, artillery ammo would still be infinite, only musket ammo would be limited.

[RDBoles]

I was wondering if you could use Mikesla's idea about sending a courier to the ammo wagon from each reg and back. and could you have more than one ammo wagon per division? How about seperate wagons one for art and one for inf? Resupply of ammo was a major concern during the Civil War and the courier method seems to simulate that process fairly well.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Just to add, to do away with the supply is in my opinion ridiculous. Here one on hand players wish the game to be more realistic, and on the other hand want to do away with one of the most important part of warfare...the supply.

The supply line is the most important component outside of having an excellent tactical commander, and well trained troops....with a poor supply you are dead before the battle even begins.

Of course this is just my personal opinion.

Later!

[Garnier]

I was wondering if you could use Mikesla's idea about sending a courier to the ammo wagon from each reg and back.

His idea isn't technically possible as I understand it.

could you have more than one ammo wagon per division?

That would just make resupply easier to do.

How about seperate wagons one for art and one for inf?

Not possible.